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February 23, 2025      10:00 AM

SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

GATHERING FOR WORSHIP

As the bell sounds, may we quiet ourselves and allow the music of the prelude to lead us into a worshipful place in our hearts and minds.

*  Those who are able, please stand.

Prelude                                 More Love to Thee

William H. Doane, arr. Cindy Berry

Welcome and Announcements

Choral Introit

Call to Worship (I Corinthians 1)

Leader: When God speaks, all creation answers:
People: the pale winter moon cries, 'Glory!'
the sun hums a song as it warms the earth.

Leader: When God speaks, lives are changed:
People: those held hostage by oppression are set free;
the voiceless shout the story of salvation.
Leader: When God speaks, everything is turned inside out:
People: the wise learn the language of grace from little children; the strong take lessons from the powerless.

*Opening Hymn             A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

Unison Prayer of Invocation

O God, you call us together as you did those seekers, so long ago, to discover your blessedness. Today, in this place, we gather in Christ’s name. Let us remember, listen and pray for, celebrate, and embody the presence of God. Christ moves among us. Alleluia! Amen!

SHARING GOD’S WORD

Scripture Reading            1 Corinthians 1:20-31

Leader: This is the Word of the Lord.

People:   Thanks be to God.

Musical Interlude

THE COMMUNITY AT PRAYER

Sharing of Joys and Concerns

Call to Prayer (#593)               Lead Me, Lord

Lead me, Lord, lead me in thy righteousness, make thy way plain before my face. For it is thou, Lord, thou, Lord, only, that makest me dwell in safety.

Pastoral Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.  Amen.

*Responsorial Reading of Preparation         The Beatitudes

SERMON         Blessing: I Did Not See that Coming

THE SERVICE OF OFFERING

Collection and Offertory

*The Doxology (#46)

*Unison Prayer of Dedication

God of life, savior of the poor; receive, with this money, our gratitude for your goodness, penitence for our pride and dedication to your service in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

WE GO FORTH TO SERVE

*Hymn of Parting          O Jesus, I Have Promised

*Benediction (2 Corinthians 5)
May the abundant grace of God, the compelling love of Christ and the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit make of us new creatures, so that, as old things pass away, behold all things become new.

All: And now, may we bear fruit as we go forth in peace to love and serve the Lord, In the name of Christ. Amen.

Congregational Response     Go Now in Peace

Go now in peace. Never be afraid, God will go with you each hour of every day. Go now in faith, steadfast, strong and true. Know He will guide you in all you do. Go now in love, and show you believe. Reach out to others so all the world can see. God will be there, watching from above. Go now in peace, in faith, and in love.

Postlude                   Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

Anthony J. Showalter, arr. Victor Labenske

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BLESSING: I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING

As we study the Beatitudes, something to keep in mind from Biblical Scholar William Barclay:
The beatitudes are not simple statements; they are exclamations: “O the blessedness of the poor in spirit!”
That is most important, for it means the beatitudes are not pious hopes of what shall be; they are not glowing, nebulous prophecies of some future bliss; they are congratulations on what is.  The blessedness which belongs to the Christian is not a blessedness which is postponed to some future world of glory; it is a blessedness which exists here and now.

On this, our next-to-the-last Sunday after Epiphany, we turn to perhaps the most famous part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: the Beatitudes.
As Dr. Barclay suggests, there are some realities about being a Christian which are quite a bit different than we might imagine or even wish for.
Today’s title comes from the often used quip that’s good for a chuckle - “I did not see that coming!”
Much of what Jesus taught and preached to the gathered crowds of his day was thought-provoking to say the least and often challenging and even controversial given the confines of his tradition.
Even those of us gathered under his banner some 2000 years later can often hear the discord between what we learn and profess in here and the priorities and pressures that impinge upon us from the secular world.

Scripture warns us of these discrepancies.  They are to be expected.  The apostle Paul spells them out in our passage from 1st Corinthians
Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom
Signs and wisdom:
I guess if I were a right-brainer, then I’d be looking for the signs: visuals, auditory;
and if I’m a left-brainer, I’d be going for wisdom: is it logical, does it make sense?
We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.
“We did not see that coming!”
We humans stratify human value and worth.

As Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, he implies a membership of middle-class types, and even lower:
not many of you were wise by human standards,
not many were powerful,
not many were of noble birth.
Then he upgrades their status to God’s first class:
God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;
God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
God chose what is low and despised in the world . .
“We did not see that coming!”

Turning to the Beatitudes Jesus shares - note again Dr. Barclay’s urging that these conditions are to be expected, and more importantly, seen as blessings of a faithful life.
Within our emotional and psychological experiences, even in the life of faith,
we will still know melancholy, feeling poor in spirit;
we will still know the sadness and heartache as we mourn the loss of loved ones dear to us.
We may expect that if we’re faithful and devoted, we should not feel these feelings anymore.
Yet, Jesus calls emptiness and mourning blessed.
“We did not see that coming!”
Within our approaches to the world at large, we like to present strength and confidence; pushing down such character flaws as the reticence of meekness,
Not wanting to show, openly, how much we yearn for someone to love us, or
Not wanting to so easily forgive those who trespass against us, without some punishment;
Pushing aside that “purity of heart” to make some snide remark, going for the laugh at someone else’s expense.
We’re too cool.

And yet, Jesus calls meekness, forgiveness & purity of heart, blessed.
“We did not see that coming!”
To be God’s children, we are called to be the ones to bury the hatchet first, to step back from insisting on our own way.   We’re not always so good at that.  My way or the highway comes into all of our minds.
Jesus calls being a peacemaker a blessing.
But in those times when making peace seems immoral or against our values: we can be rebellious:

“We did not see that coming!”
And, in the end, through all this blessedness of feeling down, forgiving all around, and always being the peacemaker, we can still expect to be persecuted!
“We did not see that coming!”

In her book, Flora & Ulysses, author Kate DiCamillo tells a wonderful tale of young person Flora rescuing a squirrel who turned out to be able to type out poetry.  Flora called such things “Holy unanticipated occurrences.” When something truly unexpected and unbelievable was happening, which was basically all the time, she would say, “Holy unanticipated occurrences!”
As Paul mentions, like the Jews, we yearn for visible proof, and often manage to find it with a little shift in perspective: when sunlight passes through drops of rain we see a rainbow; through the eyes of faith, it can become a sign of hope.  That shift in perspective moves us into a wisdom based on God’s way of presenting things.
Most of us seldom place ourselves in these categories: foolish, weak, low, despised.  And yet, we have all known those feelings.
God’s blessings come to us even more intensely because, in our darkest hours, God’s light shines even more brightly.
When Jesus offers his list of blessings, each one brings its gift.
Pain becomes the beginning of wisdom.  In times of feeling low and poor in spirit, the kingdom of heaven, where all pain is washed away, becomes a place into which we can enter.
Knowing the aching feelings of mourning makes us vulnerable to God’s heartfelt comfort embracing us through the arms of family and friends.
An open and eager stance makes us available to experience the very presence of God:
meekness places us in a humble position, head bowed, to know that the beauty of the earth;
To hunger and thirst for righteousness is to open the heart, ready to be filled;
To be merciful is to let go of the weight that grudges and getting-even thoughts press upon us and will enable us to more easily forgive ourselves;
To be pure in heart, is to empty the mind unencumbered by “stuff”, chattering & racing thoughts will enable us to “see” God, images all around us, conveying his love.
Doing the right thing will make us children of God.  Just like us parents: our children can truly make us proud.  Or not.
Same way with God, our eternal, spiritual Parent.
The faithful stance presents us in a certain suppleness, softness, vulnerable light opening us to certain persecution, ripe and ready to be taken advantage of.

Once again, the kingdom of heaven, where the spirit is not touched by the outside world, becomes our refuge.

What we did not see coming, we must embrace whole-heartedly, learn from and move forward!

So . . . If we choose to base our lives on this book of faith we call the Bible, we will discover countless instances of unanticipated expectations; the kind of challenges we will not have seen coming.
It will be forever our struggle to be unusual, uncharacteristic, not always politically correct, no matter our politics.
We will not always be on top of the world, but through it all, we will be blessed.

Dr. Barclay, once again:
“The beatitudes speak of that joy which seeks us through our pain; that joy which sorrow and loss, and pain and grief, are powerless to touch; that joy which shines through tears, and which nothing in life or death can take away.  The world can win its joys, and the world can equally well lose its joys:  A change in fortune, a collapse in health, the failure of a plan, the disappointment of an ambition, even a change in the weather, can take away the fickle joy the world can give.  But the Christian has the serene and untouchable joy which comes from walking side by side with Christ, forever in the presence of God.”

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"Judy's Corner" Blessing: I Did Not See That Coming" 

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"Judy's Corner" Blessing: I Did Not See That Coming" 